


only a word

by redledgers



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Dates, F/F, Fluff, Zoo, maze.exe has stopped functioning, some cuteness to round out your year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22020481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: a date at the zoo brings out something unexpected
Relationships: Eve/Mazikeen (Lucifer TV)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 76





	only a word

The Los Angeles Zoo feels like it goes on forever, sprawling up a small hill and, at least in this moment, not full of screaming children. But Maze lets Eve pull her from enclosure to enclosure, reading the plaques, and occasionally expressing her desire to get closer to the animals the way she had a few times in the Garden. Even still, there are creatures she had never seen, and there is something childlike in her eyes as she clings to Maze’s hand.

Eve kisses her at the snow leopard enclosure. “It reminds me of you,” she says, watching the large cat pace back and forth, stalking a ground squirrel that had found its way inside and couldn’t seem to figure out how to get out.

“How so?” The feline grace, Maze gets. The predator on the hunt, even when it doesn’t know it. But there is something in Eve’s voice that tells Maze that she sees more deeply into this creature, into Mazikeen herself.

“It wasn’t made to live here, but it figured it out anyway.” They don’t talk about the time Maze felt trapped or how Eve had to learn to live somewhere that had been unforgiving to the soft body she had been given. It doesn’t matter.

The squirrel meets an untimely fate and they wander away to the next animal. Eve mumbles something about getting a stuffed snow leopard on the way out, and Maze can’t help but agree.

They’re leaning against the railing at the giraffe enclosure, watching one of the newborns make its debut when Eve turns to a young man standing beside them. “Excuse me,” she says, holding her phone out. “Would you be willing to take a photo of me and my wife?”

The man is happy to oblige, and Eve tucks herself against Maze. Her body is warm and soft, and Maze can only think about those last two words. She barely hears Eve’s quiet “Smile!” before she’s reaching for Eve’s jaw, turning her face to kiss her sweetly. There are people nearby who make sounds that should disgust Maze, but she can’t bring herself to retaliate. Not when Eve is beaming when she pulls away.

“Thank you,” Eve says, but Maze can’t tell if it’s to the man who hands her back her phone, or to Maze. They walk away from the giraffes and begin the walk back down the slope, through the rest of the zoo. Now, children and carriages seem to flood the walkways, mid-afternoon outings and schools releasing curious eyes and hands into the world. But Maze can’t seem to care.

They stop at the Churro Factory before the gift shop, and Maze can’t keep the smile from her lips when Eve reaches across their shared sundae to wipe whipped cream from the corner of her mouth. She feels drunk on this woman and the feeling she gets when they’re together. “You’re really pretty,” Eve says after she licks her thumb.

“And you’re my wife,” Maze replies. She pauses. “Why?”

Eve shrugs. “I liked the way it sounded.” Her nose wrinkles as she bites into a chocolate sauce and whipped cream covered churro. “I don’t want to belong to anyone like that again,” she says when she’s finished chewing. Her words are not unkind though, and her free hand searches for Maze’s on the tabletop.

And Maze thinks about the snow leopard, the squirrel, the other creatures that make homes in this space. She thinks about what she knows of the Garden and of Hell and of this city of angels that doesn’t know how right it is. Eve has chocolate at the corner of her mouth and she burns so brightly and Maze doesn’t want to be bound to anyone ever again either, but she’s happy for Eve to hold her heart for as long as she wants to. She squeezes Eve’s hand. “Whatever this is right now is enough.” And then she leans over the table to kiss Eve. “But I won’t complain if you want to say that again if it gets us free shit.”

**Author's Note:**

> Event at the snow leopard enclosure based on real events I witnessed the last time I was at the LA Zoo


End file.
